


The Hateful Verse

by Nemonus



Category: Destiny (Video Game)
Genre: Books of Sorrow, Gen, Pre-Canon, adorable Hive children, in which Taox is very concerned she will be late for a meeting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-19
Updated: 2016-02-19
Packaged: 2018-05-21 14:40:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6055309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nemonus/pseuds/Nemonus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“What is it, father?” Xi Ro asks.</p><p>“It is Taox, the traitor."</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Hateful Verse

Taox doesn’t remember her first look at the Helium Drinkers, because there were so many attempts to prevent a war that they were in the court almost three times each day.

They looked like her own people, she thought, and they came from the continent that floated now very close to the shore, and they ate ten of the king’s children as tribute. Xi Ro had taken this news with wide eyes and dark brows, and Taox respected her fortitude and curiosity.  
  
At this time, though, Xi Ro is tucked with her sisters in a shallow bowl of the black rock in the craw-castle, and the storm outside is shrugging like an old person roused from sleep.  
  
Underneath the rocks, the engines must be tasting the wind and feeling the shift and rise of the rocks. The engines will be engaging in new ways, keeping the Osmium Court stable. The people Taox knows - quick Tirash, quiet Tlilak, belligerent Xamash - will be watching the cantilevers and adjusting, will be looking for condensation on the outside of the tanks. Taox’s engines are safe, and the king’s children need a lesson today, even though Taox was distracted by the storm enough not to have a clear lesson for them. She is a teacher, not a guard, and so she looks up with the intent of gesturing the daughters of the king toward the balcony. Instead, she sees the latest delegation from the Helium Drinkers creeping up beside the wall. It is about to go around the corner that would shield it from her view. Guards of the Osmium Court watch the delegation with weapons in their hands.  
  
Aurash has noticed Taox’s silence or heard a noise below the buzz of the storm, and she walks evenly across the black rock floor on four limbs before straightening up and becoming both more worried and more royal.  
  
“Why?” Aurash asks. “Why do they come to our continent?”  
  
Taox watches Aurash click her small, soft claws together while she waits. Usually, a surviving child’s parent would tell it the truths, would go with it on a boat or climb the Fraying Cliffs and watch the threads be taken by the air. Instead, the Osmium King is busy plotting, and Taox has begun to suspect that he is not plotting the course that is actually in front of him. She has a feeling that the best her engineers may do will not be enough.  
  
“Come here,” Taox says, and then, “Bring your sisters.”  
  
She brings them to the small balcony, ducking under the curtain of stone. Aurash ventures immediately to the edge and stops, teetering, looking for invisible things out in the clouds. Xi Ro hangs back, shifting from foot to foot as if to reassure herself or her footing, while Sathona lingers near Taox, occasionally trying to match her longer strides.  
  
"Behold the world,” Taox says.  
  
“It’s cold,” says Sathona.  
  
“It falls,” says Aurash.  
  
“This is just the balcony,” Xi Ro says.  
  
“What else,” Taox asks, “Do you know about the world?”  
  
The daughters think and jostle one another, shoulder to shoulder. They huddle together against the wind and glance up and down at the orange-white sky.  
  
“The world has many mysteries,” Xi Ro says.  
  
She is only repeating back what Taox has taught her before, but this answer is correct, and Taox promises that she will show Xi Ro the engines on their next excursion.  
  
“Teacher Taox built the engines,” Sathona says loudly, wanting to be sure her own fact is heard so that Xi Ro does not gain favor greater than hers.  
  
Taox nods. “Not alone.”  
  
“Who built the Helium Drinkers?” Aurash asks pensively.  
  
The question surprises Taox, but she understands it. If a string were draped from one end of the engines to another - a feat that would be impossible, since it would be tangled and bisected before it made it all the way there - it would create an interlocking pattern like the one which Aurash refers to when she asks this question.  
  
“The Helium Drinkers are like us,” Taox says. “They are of our species and can be killed exactly as easily as we can.”  
  
“Why?” says Aurash.  
  
“I see them disappearing,” Xi Ro says as the delegation rounds the corner, and she shoves past Sathona and Taox both in order to go to the edge of the balcony. She will not be able to see any better there, because the Helium Drinkers have gone inside the wall, but she shoves Sathona hard. Sathona flaps her hands at her sister and sits down, squalling. Aurash has drifted further along the edge in the opposite direction, unconcerned. They should pay attention better than this at the age of two, Taox thinks. Has she done something wrong in her teaching?  
  
Taox picks up Sathona by the largest horn on the back of her head and sets her on her feet. “They are the same as we are, but none of us are the same as the things that live in the sea or the sky. We are very small and we have short lives, do you see this?”  
  
Sathona is attentive because she must be; Xi Ro is attentive because the objects of her interest have disappeared into the Osmium Court. Aurash is not attentive.  
  
“We are small, but those of who take the mother jelly breed quickly, and we build engines to do what we need, and in this way we adapt to our world. Do you understand this?” Taox says.  
  
Aurash mutters, “Yes.” She was always sure of her own truth, and Taox believed her. Xi Ro says yes more firmly, and Sathona says no.  
  
So Taox tells them more while the storm comes in, about how their people grew out of the world and how the Osmium Kingdom grew out of their continent and the Helium Drinkers out of theirs.  
  
The daughters of the king go back inside, while their teacher looks at the burnt color of the sky. Taox turns from the sight and feels the fear coil inside her like a storm, like a change in pressure. It takes her a moment to realize that the hope she had been holding on to before, the unspoken plan for her own future, has left her. Taox thinks, _these children will not save us_.  
  
Her faith had not been unjustified: the royal family had shepherded her people through many storms before, many sharp drops that might have ended in rocks were it not for their decisions, their wars or choices to prevent wars. The madness into which their king was descending would drag them all down before the children were grown enough, before Xi Ro would be strong enough or Sathona would be wise enough or Aurash would discover enough.  
  
Aurash would soon be traveling to the Tungsten Monoliths, a self-chosen journey to study the properties of the edifices. When she returned, they would be all three in one place. The creche could be taken easily, but if Taox instructed the Helium Drinkers in exactly where to run and where to refrain from running, the heirs would not be killed. The heirs would need a regent while they ruled in the puppet state of the Helium Drinkers.  
  
On the floor Xi Ro rolls over Sathona, who squalls and then continues to scratch codes into the floor.  
  
Taox watches.  
  
Later, the delegation from the nearby continent waits for the Osmium King in the hall of the throne. Taox is meant to present the children to the king after this audience, but the audience does not begin, and instead the king's three advisers are nervously blinking. When Taox appears they look to her with unexpected pleading in their eyes. She almost turns away until she realizes that because she is not occupied at her station, and because she is a neuter, she would receive less ire for seeking the king than any of them would, and far less than if the delegation of the Helium Drinkers was allowed to loiter. With fear in her blood, Taox nods at them and tells the children to stay where they are and mind the walls, and goes for the high reaches of the castle where the king in his meditations might be found.  
  
Taox is right. She knows the family, and Aurash and Xi Ro received some of their parent’s wanderlust. The Osmium King is standing far from the sea and deep inside the walls, far from the rolling orange and white clouds of the sky. He is holding the white worm, his familiar, in the crook of his arm.  
  
“My king,” says Taox. “The Helium Drinkers have come to talk to you. Your advisers are nervous in your absence and have sent me.”  
  
He stands with his broad back to her and says nothing. She can hear the wind outside through the blue-black walls.  
  
“What became of my children, Taox?”  
  
“They are in the craw-castle, where they are sleeping.”  
  
“How many, Taox?”  
  
The same number as before, she thought, but maybe it is a trick question. Is he counting three as one today, since the sisters were so close in age and in appearance? Maybe three is one today, and Taox is one-third and the king and the worm makes two-thirds, and so in this way Taox is outnumbered twice over.  
  
She thinks she should answer simply at first and keep her mathematics in reserve. “There are three, my king.”  
  
“And where are the others?”  
  
Perhaps he meant to multiply instead of divide. Maybe each one is three and now there are nine - but no. She thinks of the delegation of the Helium Drinkers with their nine eyes. “The others have been eaten as tribute or have fallen into the sky from their own folly, long ago. Do you not remember?”  
  
“We remember,” says the king. He presses one claw against the worm so hard that the white flesh almost breaks, but the worm does not seem distressed. “It is as if we ate them. The Helium Drinkers grew strong in the pact. Even though the deaths deny me my daughters, they further the fragile connection between our two continents. War breeds there between the plates. No matter who fights, the war wins. Do you understand this, Taox?”  
  
She is not sure. She says, “Yes, king.”  
  
“So if we throw our daughters to the stormjoys, the war will go on the same.”  
  
“Xi Ro has already fought several stormjoys and captured their bait stars, and she is only two,” Taox says before she has thought too much about it, considering only to show her own prowess at teaching the king’s daughters the way of life.  
  
This is not what the king wants to hear. Taox thinks she can see the sightless worm looking at her, speaking at her. _You are not worthy you are not royal would you like to be royal?_ they say, but the words are very clearly not her own, and she does not heed them.  
  
The Osmium King says, “Bring me my daughters.”  
  
She tries once more. “This will be done most quickly. Perhaps they too can see the ambassadors.”  
  
The King shrugs one shoulder and then the other, a mountainous shift that moves his headdress. It is the universal predatory transition, the sign of getting larger, and Taox makes herself small and backs out of the room, and brings the spawn to the king.  
  
When Taox does this, the three sisters are eager but not loud. They act like they are hunting, all intent silence. They edge closer to the king their father, and he takes them in. The Osmium King’s claws move over Aurash and over Sathona and over Xi Ro.  
  
The worm is still held in the crook of one of his arms. Aurash is the first to reach out to it, indeed the first to give any indication that she has noticed it.  
  
It extrudes small, white tendrils and waves them, but the king pulls it away abruptly. He appears to struggle against its will. Although it doesn’t speak, Taox can see the soft flesh shaking. It is almost translucent, so that the skin looks like the thin clouds whipping around a larger storm. The worm, Taox thinks suddenly, is the sky, and therefore it is also the land because the sky is the land’s reflection, and they are all falling upward through the skin of the worm.  
  
“What is it, father?” Xi Ro asks.  
  
“It is Taox, the traitor,” says the Osmium King, and Taox goes very still.  
  
She has betrayed nothing. She has betrayed no one, although she has worried about whether the engines can keep running when they are sometimes neglected. Those thoughts have lead to other thoughts. And she has wondered, just now, what the king wishes to achieve by letting the delegation wait in the Court while he talks to his surviving children. Taox is struck still with horror and distrust of her own memory. The king’s words made small pocket-worlds and now she lived in one. His worlds were not immutable, though: Taox could make her own, too, and this she did.  
  
“It is Taox the builder, my king. The one who teaches your children.”  
  
At this time the king turns toward her, and his regard levels on her and he believes in the world she has created more than the one he had created. She knows that this will not happen always.  
  
After that, Xi Ro and her parent define things for a while, but none of them create worlds so divergent as when he spoke of Taox. Aurash continues to look at the worm, but she does not take further note of it. It is the king’s familiar, after all, and it is well-known to them. Sathona, though, comes closer to the worm when she sits in the curve of her father’s elbow, and as she looks at the worm she becomes intent on it.  
  
Sathona says, “It is just …. just …” and does not find a word to follow that one. The king her parent looks down at her, thinking. By this time Taox has retreated just a few steps toward one of the many corners of the room and folded her fingers together. She has not been dismissed, and the thought of the delegation has not stopped bothering her.  
  
When finally he brings it up, she wonders whether she should mention her latest reports from the engines.  
  
“Do you know how I will deal with the delegation?” the king asks Sathona. Aurash and Xi Ro are showing signs of being dangerously bored, and sit beside one another.  
  
“You will send them out,” says Sathona. Taox expects him to impart a lesson from this quick answer, but he doesn’t do that yet. Instead, he moves his arms closer together so that the cradled child approaches the cradled worm. Sathona reaches out and the worm moves closer, pushing its fat body across the king’s large arm.  
  
“What would you have me do, Aurash?” asks the king.  
  
“Visit their city and see what it looks like,” says Aurash. “Then you can decide what to do with it.”  
  
“No,” says Xi Ro, and pats at her sister’s shoulder, and then her head, in her rush to speak. “You will keep them here.”  
  
The king considers these things before he speaks. “I will appeal to their dreams and hopes, and offer to give them what they want in exchange for what I want. Which is, of course, for them to leave us alone. If they are not swayed by this appeal we will destroy them.”  
  
With this the king teaches his spawn that aspiration is the same as survival. One must follow one’s hopes and dreams or one must die.  
  
Both the worm and Sathona have crawled into the king’s hands. The child has put her arms around the worm, and she is humming. The song reminds Taox of broken gears, and accelerates the fear until it jumps up behind her like a predator.  
  
“They are still in the Court,” she says, and is terrified.  
  
The king stands. In his arms, Sathona holds the unprotesting worm and kicks her feet, suddenly slack in the air.  
  
Taox sees his madness and wonders whether one day he will drop one of his daughters over the edge of the world in order to see whether war will start from the breezes made by their passing.  
  
_It is Taox, the traitor._  
  
The words are out in the world now. They are real things, and they sink like stones in the storm, slowly.  
  
Perhaps there was another king on the Helium continent that would not speak to a worm, would not cry out about the moons. Perhaps the Helium Drinkers would want to kill the daughters the way they had killed the tributes. Perhaps they would never trust Taox, a traitor, not to betray them in turn.  
  
Perhaps they would listen to grief before they listened to guile.  
  
Perhaps those faces in the court would not look up at the moons with eyes like the white skin of the worm.  
  
“What is this you speak of?” says the king. “Who is in the Court?”  
  
“The delegation from the Helium Drinkers,” says Taox, and her voice is steady.  
  
The king turns and walks along the length of the long room. At the end, far enough that she can barely see him, he slips the worm into a five-sided box of glass while Sathona climbs to his shoulder.  
  
The Court is held. Sathona drops out of her father’s grip when he has ceased to pay attention to her, and runs the long, long way to where the spawn are gathered around Taox’s legs. She makes her own decision to let them watch the Court; although their father speaks in riddles and tangents, he does follow his own advice. The Helium Drinkers are placated but confused, and Taox thinks they will not remain placated for long.  
  
When she shuffles the children back to their room when it is all done, when the king has shouldered his way out in the direction of the worm, Taox looks toward where she would be able to see the coast if not for the walls, and feels bile churn through her.  
  
She begins to compose, and as she does the plans and rationales and half-lies unfold like bait stars.  
  
_For the consideration of the Helium Court,_

_Written in desperation,_

_This sealed secret…_


End file.
